David Hagberg is an American novelist best known for his techno-thriller

Techno-thriller

Techno-thrillers are a hybrid genre, drawing subject matter generally from spy/action thrillers, fantasy/war novels, and science fiction...

s featuring super-spy Kirk McGarvey. Hagberg has also written under the pseudonym Sean Flannery, Nick Carter, David Bannerman, David James, Robert Pell, and Eric Ramsey. Hagberg's style has been described as a cross between Tom Clancy

Tom Clancy

Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. is an American author, best known for his technically detailed espionage, military science, and techno thriller storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games on which he did not work, but which bear his name for licensing and...

 and Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming

Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...

. His thrillers generally feature a combination of technical detail, timely plots and super-spy heroics that are sometimes almost prophetic in their accuracy . In the novel Joshua's Hammer, for example, written in 2000, Hagberg gives a chilling account of a mega-terrorist plot by Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...

 to kill thousands of Americans on their home soil, published a full year before the World Trade Center Attacks. His scenario of McGarvey tracking bin Laden to his urban lair in Pakistan and shooting him in the head -- far from Tora Bora’s caves -- was described and executed in “Allah’s Scorpion (2007)” four years before the eerily similar event echoed Hagberg’s novel.

Like many "cloak-and-dagger" novelists, Hagberg has a professional background in espionage, having spent his stint of military duty as a cryptographer for U.S. Air Force Intelligence.

Hagberg apprenticed as a spy writer by contributing more than 20 "work-for-hire"

Work for hire

A work made for hire is an exception to the general rule that the person who actually creates a work is the legally recognized author of that work...

 entries in the Nick Carter - Killmaster

Nick Carter (literary character)

Nick Carter is a fictional character who began as a pulp fiction private detective and has appeared in a variety of formats over more than a century.-Literary history:...

 series of espionage novels between 1976 and 1987. He also wrote "work-for-hire" novels based on the Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon

Flash Gordon is the hero of a science fiction adventure comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by and created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. Also inspired by these series were comics such as Dash...

 comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

.

His work has been well-received by his colleagues in the crime writing community. Three of his novels, The Kremlin Conspiracy, False Prophets, and Broken Idols, were nominated for Edgars by the MWA

Mystery Writers of America

Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York.The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday....

 in the "Best Paperback Original Novel" category. Three of his McGarvey novels, Countdown, Crossfire, and Critical Mass, won American Mystery Awards, given by Mystery Scene Magazine, for "Best Spy Novel."

Hagberg wrote a short story titled "Genesis" in Twilight Zone: 19 Original Stories on the 50th Anniversary

Twilight Zone: 19 Original Stories on the 50th Anniversary

Twilight Zone: 19 Original Stories on the 50th Anniversary is a collection of short stories written by various authors and edited by Carol Serling, the widow of series creator Rod Serling. Each story was written with themes or styles similar to The Twilight Zone episodes, including narrated...

.

Kirk McGarvey Novels

• Without Honor (1989)
• Countdown (1990)
• Crossfire (1991)
• Critical Mass (1992)
• High Flight (1995)
• Assassin (1997)
• White House (1999)
• Joshua's Hammer (2000)
• The Kill Zone (2002)
• Soldier of God (2005)
• Allah's Scorpion (2007)
• Dance with the Dragon (2007)
• The Expediter (2009)

Miscellaneous Novels

• Twister (1975)
• The Capsule (1976)
• Croc (1976) (writing as David James)
• That Winslow Woman (1977) (writing as Robert Pell)
• The Kummersdorf Connection (1978) (writing as Eric Ramsey)
• Heartland (1983)
• Heroes (1985)
• Last Come the Children (1987)
• Desert Fire (1993)
• Eden's Gate (2001)
• By Dawn's Early Light (2003)
• Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines (2003)
• Burned (2009)

Novels written as Sean Flannery

• Kremlin Conspiracy' (1979)
• The Trinity Factor (1981)
• Eagles Fly (1982)
• Hollow Men (1982)
• Broken Idols (1985)
• False Prophets (1985)
• Gulag (1987)
• Moscow Crossing (1988)
• The Zebra Network (1989)
• Crossed Swords (1989)
• Counterstrike (1990)
• Moving Targets (1991)
• Winner Take All (1994)
• Kilo Option (1996)
• Achilles' Heel (1998)

Flash Gordon Novels

• Massacre in the 22nd Century (1980)
• War of the Citadels (1980)
• Crisis on Citadel II (1980)
• Forces from the Federation (1981)
• Citadels Under Attack (1981)
• Citadels on Earth (1981)

Magic Man Novels (writing as David Bannerman)

• The Magic Man (1983)
• The Gamov Factor (1983)
• Pipeline from Hell (1984)
• Call of Honor (1985)

Nick Carter - Killmaster Novels (writing as Nick Carter)

• Sign of the Prayer Shawl (1976)
• Race of Death (1978)
• The Ouster Conspiracy (1981)
• The Strontium Code (1981)
• Deathlight (1982)
• The Dominican Affair (1982)
• The Puppet Master (1982)
• The Hunter (1982)
• Appointment in Haiphong (1982)
• Operation McMurdo Sound (1982)
• Retreat for Death (1982)
• The Damocles Threat (1982)
• The Istanbul Decision (1983)
• Earthfire North (1983)
• Zero-Hour Strike Force (1984)
• Death Island (1984)
• Death Hand Play (1984)
• The Vengeance Game (1985)
• The Killing Ground (1986)
• Death Orbit (1986)
• Operation Petrograd (1986)
• East of Hell (1987)

External links

• Official David Hagberg web site